Open Britain on the Threat to Democracy and Privacy from the On-Line Safety Bill

‘Dear David, 

This week, Open Britain and others took a stand for the fundamental human right to privacy. In its latest incursion on our rights, the Government is attacking end-to-end encryption through the Online Safety Bill (OSB). As the Bill begins its report stage in the House of Lords this week, we’ve worked with partners to get the message out to Peers: neither the government nor social media corporations should be reading our encrypted messages. 

Alongside our partners at Fair Vote UK, we’ve long sought to make the Online Safety Bill into something positive. It’s a massive, complex bill that – in its original form – had the potential to crack down on harmful disinformation and online abuse. Through successive Conservative cabinets, it’s turned into an absolute mess. As the positive elements were abruptly stripped away, new anti-democratic powers were inserted (including one frankly ridiculous amendment to make it illegal to show videos of migrant crossings online in a “positive light”). 

Now, the OSB can be added to the long list of authoritarian legislation that threatens our core human rights. Just as the Policing Act was ostensibly to protect us from disruption and protests, and the Elections Act was purportedly to protect us from voter fraud, the Government claims that it needs to undermine encryption to protect children online. It does this by empowering Ofcom – set to be the new online harms regulator – to compel companies to scan our private messages. Moreover, the Bill grants massive powers to the relevant Secretary of State to oversee Ofcom, part of the ‘authoritarian creep’ seen in so much of the Johnson/Truss/Sunak era legislation. 

This conveyor belt of Conservative governments always pretends that each new draconian Bill is for our own good, to protect us from ourselves. In reality, they are using a large Parliamentary majority to consolidate power, taking us down a dark authoritarian path while pretending they’re doing us a favour. While it is important to protect children online (and there are plenty of other ways to do that), we can’t trust this government to wield these powers responsibly, never mind an unspecified future one that may have even darker intentions.

No one wants this. Campaigners, ordinary people, and even many of the tech giants themselves agree that encryption is a crucial part of our right to privacy. While most people in the UK want the government to do more about harm and disinformation online, they don’t want to pay for it with their rights. 

We’re fighting for an amendment in the House of Lords which would require specific protections for encryption. Unfortunately, the government has the upper hand in these negotiations and will likely fight for it with everything they have. It’s one more uphill struggle in our battle against the wave of toxic legislation we’ve seen in recent years. 

In a properly functioning democracy, campaigners, experts, and the general public would have a real voice on issues like this. We wouldn’t be forced to forfeit essential human rights to an authoritarian and unpopular government based on false pretences. That’s worth fighting for, right?

The Open Britain team‘